Zucchini: My Favorite Sneaky Vegetable for Recipes!

4 Awesome Meals to Make with Zucchini

We love zucchini in my family–well, I guess my kids don't really know that they love it. You see, I add it to so many of our recipes, but I'm often a bit stealth about the fact that it's in there. It's my secret ingredient when I'm looking to add more veggies to a meal.

I try to have zucchini on hand all the time. If I don't end up adding it to anything the week I buy it, I just grate and toss it in the freezer to use next time I want to add it to something.

Last summer we were given a TON of zucchini. Big, beautiful zucchini! I was amazed by how many meals I could sneak it into. It's pretty much a staple to all my pasta dishes, however, my overabundance of zucchini made me get a bit creative–and search all my recipes that included my special ingredient.

4 “Sneaky” Zucchini Recipes

Tacos

I was probably the most proud of myself for adding zucchini to our taco nights. We have taco/burrito nights almost every week. It's a quick easy meal and we tend to have all the ingredients on hand–okay, I purposely have the ingredients on hand so that I can get dinner to the table easily. I added a couple of handfuls of zucchini to our taco meat and didn't say a thing. Ha! No one noticed it until I pointed it out–after dinner. 🙂

Meatloaf

Meatloaf is another staple in our house. I have several different meatloaf recipes that my family loves. My BBQ meatloaf is probably our favorite. The zucchini was perfect for this recipe. This meatloaf is featured in my Top 10 Freezer Meal 2 Crock Pot Recipes.

Sausage Tortellini Soup

The zucchini in this dish is totally obvious–and so good! This incredible soup is full of healthy goodness. The zucchini just soaks up the flavor of the sausage-infused broth. Yum! {You can find this recipe HERE.}

Zucchini Bread

Then there is one of my favorite recipes to make with zucchini–ZUCCHINI BREAD! I grated up enough for a quadruple recipe and froze it–& preceded to forget I had it in my freezer.

A few months ago I decided to do a big freezer cleanout {see the video below}, and guess what I found? Yep!! My zucchini! I was so excited!

I defrosted it and got it all ready to go. I even tried a little twist to the recipe which added some really nice flavor. Instead of using just ground cinnamon like the recipe calls for, I added a few drops of Cassia oil. Now before you go adding a “few” drops of Cassia oil to substitute cinnamon in your next meal, remember that I was quadrupling the recipe. One drop typically goes a long way when cooking with essential oils. In the case of Cassia, one drop is about the equivalent to 1 tsp. Now, cinnamon essential oil is about the equivalent to 1-2 Tbsp. of ground cinnamon. So, don't get carried away.

I used just about every loaf pan I could get my hands on for this huge batch. We shared a few loaves with friends–and ate several ourselves.

My Awesome Zucchini Bread Recipe

Enough talking about the recipe, how about I share it? Ha! You are going to love this recipe! Please feel free to justify this sweet bread as nutritious since it is filled with veggies! It's got to be healthy with 2 cups of zucchini, right?

Hope you enjoy it! You'll have to let me know in the comments below what meals you add zucchini to. I'll be ready for next summer.

{Just click HERE or on the recipe below to get a printable–and more easily readable–recipe}

The Video from My Big Freezer Clean Out!